MySpace was launched in August 2003 as a project created by employees of the digital marketing company eUniverse in Los Angeles. Founders Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson set up the new platform to enable users to create profiles and connect with each other socially. In those years, online social networking was still experimental and poorly understood. Despite its experimental nature, MySpace experienced explosive growth in its first year as early adopters invited their friends to join the site.
Whilst many of the tools of social media - blogs, ugc, forums - are now increasingly brought into new web design and development, there are companies, from British Airways to Lego who view social media as the starting point - not the added feature. Others, such as ruumz.com, are already operating the 'next generation' of social networks with a new blend of online and offline activity.
Series, a small New York-based start-up, thinks it has a shot at winning a profitable share of the market. The business, only launched last year, is today revealing it has now signed up 10,000 daily active users who have collectively exchanged more than a million messages so far. Series is the brainchild of two Yale University students, Nathaneo Johnson and Sean Hargrow, who saw an opportunity to do something different in the social networking space.
Reddit's executive Winter Raymond emphasized that the platform has never viewed itself as a traditional social networking service, stating, 'Users come to Reddit to find their community, not to engage in social networking.'
